Here’s
a draft of a brief poem written off-the-cuff in response to, and in support of,
yesterday’s climate strikes principally by high-school students around the
globe. Self-publishing this one feels nearly right to me because of the urgency
around this action, and its on-the-ground politics. So.
The
Warm Up
An adolescent tide, a
human tide
washes—no, spills—into
the public squares
and common spaces of
their killed planet,
our culpable and
shared and broken earth.
Swells of DIY
placards, stubby memes
magic-markered onto
rescued cardboard
and bristol board
repurposed from blue bins,
call out the dire,
decrepit quietude
of preemptive middle
age: change your life,
change
your life. A hoarse, electric chorus
of shouts and bullhorns
rises, crowd-sourcing
raw, fierce unction.
Who sutures the world’s wounds?
There’s no coming back
from extinction, obvs.
Show us how to march
the torn line between
what can be done and
what can’t be undone.
Skolstrejk for Klimatet,
Vancouver and elsewhere, 27 September 2019
